Ramadan Whispers – burnt offerings & apple surprise thingies

No, no, no sacrilege! BelovedDaughter & I made some fast-breaking (no, no, not news story) items yesterday for iftar at Masjid e Quba (no, no, not the one in Saudi). The target was 40 persons, and her task was simplepineapple upside down cake (yes, yes, the recipe she poached from me) x 2 (one for the males, one for the females). I (rather ambitiously) decided I’d make apple crisp (and not crumble as I’ve been calling it for umpteen years – I think the difference is that the crisp has oats in the crumble, and not just flour – but since a bake expert I am not, who knows?). But, target group was 40, mission 40 individual fast-breakers rather than the usual go serve yourself however much you want from the apple crisp pie dish. So, as D says, nothing beats a failure but a try:

mini muffin pan, mini muffin/cupcake wrappers, finely chopped gala apples (with their red red rind still on), sugar, cinnamon, butter, for filling (with chopped raisins – not in original recipe), oats, flour, sugar and butter (and maybe pumpkin spice, but it’s all a blur now), bake at 375 (but obviously not for the usual time – forgot to check when they were put in, so forgot when to check when they were to be taken out – you get the drift). Samosas to fry, bottles of sorrel to take out of the freezer, things to be put together so as not to be forgotten, chai decided to be made so Aunty F to be called who once more enquired as to what was on the menu (seems she didn’t believe each of the three of us who responded that we didn’t know) and therefore distracted the baker and me with the result that the bottoms of the cakes and the apple crisps were crisped! Salvaged what we could (no pix of that, sorry) – the cakes were divine, the crisps were…….well, stuck onto the pans. BD managed to scrape and transfer into new cupcake liners so that they all looked divinely like little syrupy nutcakes. Turned out divine too!